Workouts
by nburgin
Summary: Judy exercises, and Nick tries to keep up.
1. Chapter 1

To stay in shape, Judy Hopps preferred to work out at least once a week, sometimes more than that if her job had been tasking with things like paperwork or traffic patrol that didn't have a lot of physical activity. After moving to Zootopia, one of Judy's major challenges was finding a good place to work out.

Although Precinct One had its own on-campus fitness center, it did not have exercise equipment sized for anything smaller than a wolf. As she was uncomfortable with requesting special accommodation, she had to look for an alternative venue for her frequent workouts.

Zootopia was not home to very many bunnies, and very few of those who did live there were very athletic. As a result, she could not find anything quite the same as what she had back in Bunnyburrow. She ultimately settled on a small gym near the boundary between Savanna Central and the Rainforest District.

Its clientele consisted mainly of small to medium sized nocturnal predators, who mainly worked out at night. As such it was closed for most of the day, but it did stay open until 8:30 AM, plenty long enough for her to get in a morning workout. It was a modest place and not much to look at, but it seemed fairly clean despite the constant musky odor, it had all the equipment she needed in her size, and its membership rates were quite reasonable. Though she was far outside its usual target demographic, none of the other members ever made her feel unwelcome – though that may be in large part because she rarely saw any other members at all, as by the time she got there it was usually deserted except for Oswald, the disinterested-looking ocelot who worked the reception desk.

Although Nick thought he was in decent shape even before joining the force, the police academy had been quite challenging for him, and he had by necessity gained quite a bit of strength, speed, and endurance over the course of the 12-week program. It was clear to him that as a police officer, he would need to put effort into staying fit, and he readily accepted when Judy asked him to join her at her gym for regular workouts.

Although her fitness regimen was even more grueling than he expected, he tried his best to keep up with her. But between the dozens of pull-ups, hundreds of jumping jacks (with ankle weights!), and countless push-ups, among other things, he always ended up collapsed on the floor, panting for breath. At this point she would typically ask him if he was okay, to which he would wheeze out an affirmation that he is in fact _not_ in need of immediate medical attention, and she would go on without him.

After fully returning to his senses, he would always find that Judy is nowhere to be found. Nick would look around to see if there was anyone who might know where she went, but saw no one except that ocelot, who would invariably have his nose buried in a book and gave the impression of being so unaware of his surroundings that he could probably walk off with a couple of the dumbbells without him noticing. He assumed that she must have had too busy a schedule to wait on him, and simply left to continue about his day.

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 **Author's Notes:**

I originally meant this as a one-shot, but I feel like it flows better with a chapter break here.


	2. Chapter 2

As Judy returned from her quick trip to the ladies' locker room to change from her street clothes into shorts and a sports bra, Nick was nowhere to be found. Oswald, without bothering to look up from his book, smirked and asked, "So, when are you going to tell him that that's just your warm-up?"

Judy frowned, thinking the question over. This had been happening for over four weeks, and he still hadn't figured it out. Given how hard he was struggling to keep up with her as it was, she wasn't sure she wanted him to know.

After a while, she shrugged and said, "I honestly don't know."

"Well, I guess your secret is safe with me..." Oswald said, as he finally looked up from the book he'd been reading to lean over and turn the thermostat down by another ten degrees. Though she'd insisted it was unnecessary, he always felt the need to crank up the air conditioning for the main part of her workout, out of fear that she would overheat. "So, what will it be today? More weighted one-armed chin-ups?"

"Maybe later, but today I think I'll start with a couple thousand high-speed squat thrusts."

As she reached full speed, her body began to produce a low humming noise roughly similar to that of a bumblebee. At this point most mammals looking at her would see only a faint grey blur. The ocelot's eyes were especially adept at detecting rapid movement, but even he could not fully track her motion, instead seeing a jumble of rapidly shifting patterns similar to what one might see when staring at a ceiling fan. He found it disorienting, but also mesmerizing. Though he rarely paid much attention to what happened in the gym, he always found it impossible to look away when she started moving like that, even though it was slightly nauseating and he suspected that sooner or later it was going to give him a seizure.

 **END.**

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 **Author's Notes:**

Over the course of the movie, we see a little bunny do things like swing from a vine with one arm while holding Nick with the other, zip about like the Flash handing out parking tickets, kick a full-grown ram several feet through the air, knock out a rhinoceros, etc. Pondering on that gave rise to this.

I held off on publishing it for a while because I felt it could stand to be improved in some way, but never got around to reworking it, and ultimately decided that publishing as-is would be better than leaving it shelved indefinitely.

As always, special thanks to niraD for taking a look at this and providing some feedback before I published it. (Even if it was several months before in this case).


End file.
